ECF Assurance®

Why It’s Necessary

Missed CM/ECF Emails

The ramifications for missing an important ECF emails could be devastating. Attorneys have found themselves having to ask the court for extensions, or worse, potentially open to malpractice liability because they missed a CM/ECF email.
Federal Courts place the burden on attorneys to monitor dockets. Courts throughout the country hold that failure to monitor a docket, regardless of receipt of a CM/ECF email, does not excuse a missed deadline.

CourtAlert clients have reported that they have missed emails from CM/ECF, often at no fault of their own. This email problem is especially severe if the missed docket triggers a deadline, such as a time to answer an appeal or an appearance date.
Some possible causes for missed emails include:

Attorney's e-mail addresses are corrupt on the court’s computers

Email box is full

Email address entered incorrectly on the case

The firm email system fails

Revised Dockets

The court’s CM/ECF does not always send emails when minute entries are added to a docket. Often when the court edits a docket, it does not send out an email with the revision. ECF Assurance alerts users of all modified dockets.

We recommend you speak with the Partners, General Counsel, Risk Manager and Ethics Manager of your firm to let them know about ECF Assurance. If you don’t regularly check the docket sheet you are at risk for what others have gone through. It would be more persuasive to tell a judge what preventative systems you have in place rather than simply relying on court emails.

How it Works

CourtAlert ECF Assurance® automatically and reliably compares the court docket to the email notifications you receive from court. Users are alerted when there is a new or revised docket entry which was not received by CM/ECF Notification.

ECF Assurance is available onsite or offsite at CourtAlert with minimal IT involvement.

A method that automatically intercepts notices from electronically filed cases and converts them into database elements – technology used by CourtAlert Case Management to automatically retrieve ECF notices and their PDF files

Relevant Rules and Case Law

(Click here for complete research)
"
It remains the duty of the attorney for a party to review regularly the docket sheet of the case”
SDNY ECF Rule 9 (Also cited on the homepage of the NY Southern District ECF website)

"Computer problems did not relieve Plaintiff’s counsel of his obligation to continue to monitor the docket in this case..
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct promulgated by the American Bar Association support our view that Appellant’s counsel had an obligation to his client to be attentive toward the litigation. Rule 1.3 provides that "[a] lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client." (Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals 09-1167 Robinson v. Wix Filtration)

“An attorney may not simply sit back and rely on the court to keep him or her up to date” (District of Columbia 02-2069 Fox v. American Airlines)

“Because parties have an obligation to monitor the docket sheet to inform themselves of the entry of orders they wish to appeal” (District of Puerto Rico. 07-2002 Vargus v. Toledo)

“It is incumbent upon one to review the court’s docket record to make certain what the date of entry of the order is. For whatever reason, Attorney Browne’s office simply failed to perform this simple task, and no comprehensible reason has been provided for that failure” (Northern District of Indiana 07-20188 In Re Heartland Memorial Hospital)

Please email Yael@CourtAlert.com to schedule a demo of this new system.